The trouble with choices

Role choices
I've been a bit quiet on the time constrained play topics recently, but there is a reason - I've been too busy in-game getting my tanking gear up to scratch to do the research for a couple of posts that I want to do. I've been working on my tanking gear as par for the course mainly through drops from the instances but now I've actually been spending emblems and gold on it too (I just bought the orbs and the eternal fires to make Sarontie Swordbreakers)!

This is the problem with a hybrid class - I have too much choice - and thus I'm not geared to the gills in either spec. My healing gear is definitely better at present - I have spent my Emblems of Frost on it - but I have been wavering - for two reasons:

1. Firstly, and mostly, I read Matticus' post The Secret to Being a World-Class Healer and realised something - when given the choice I prefer to tank over healing. The secret is all about practice, practice, practice - yet when I get the choice - I generally prefer to tank. The one exception is when it is new content particularly where my gear is not the greatest - I get nervous about being the weak link in that chain. That isn't to say healing is easier - as I saw last night in ToC - we wiped on beasts when the other healer was a little slow moving out of the fires (and I couldn't keep up with all the healing - I'm not that good).

2. The other thing that is eating my time - I'm trying to organise a regular 10 man ICC with my guild - setting aside just two hours a week. I blame Miss Medicina for inspiring me! So I've also essentially been learning the ropes about raid leading by trial and error. We had our first run again as a guild last night in ToC which due to having to pug ended up start way to late and I only lasted one boss before I had to go. I'm wishing I had read Windsoar's post So You Wanna  Lead... beforehand however - I don't think I made that many of the listed issues last night, but I have in the past. The other thing I noticed was how much I tend to tunnel vision while healing - I can focus enough to move out of the fires, but I didn't have much idea about what else was going on - other than the feedback I got from having to heal people!

Recruiting
So on that note MARTELL or CHIVAS is recruiting more for 10 man ICC on Sundays 10 - 12 PM Server Time (that's 8-10 GMT +8) - that's on Saurfang US, an Oceanic Server. If you are interested - pop by on a Saturday or Sunday night and send me a tell - or send me an email/twit.

A couple more title choices
However I have had the chance to earn myself a few titles - most recently "the Noble" - I farmed my 100 eggs and found I had everything to do the other achievements - although it was till I had farmed a few more that I realised i had the Spring Robes to plant the plants.

I also got a whole whack of titles at once by finally getting my Crusader title which by way of requirement means I also got the Ambassador and the champion of xxxxs ones. It worked out nicely in the end - I ended up with exalted faction in all the capital cities after doing all the valiant quests - except for being a bit under 500 rep from exalted with Darnassus - so I turned in two letters of commendation at the same time. However I didn't end up buying my new mount as I figured I could put the seals to better use buying the heirloom chest for my next project - my next tank - my Death Knight.

Use of time choices
The other choice I've had to make is in terms of my non-playing time. One thing I've decided in that regard is to cut down my blogging time to one post a week. So sadly we have probably seen the last of the WoW in My Hour series. One of the reasons for not playing as much WoW was to give me a chance to think and do things that aren't WoW related and I have another couple of projects lurking in my head that I would like to see the light of day. We'll see how those go - but I'm hoping I might end up spending less time mentally on WoW and allow other creative juices to flow. I know I've really enjoyed the series - so if anyone wants to take up the mantle and ask hard (OK maybe I never asked the hard questions) then please don't feel like you are treading on my toes to do so! I'll point out - asking other bloggers is an easy task - they have a tendency to be prolific writers without you even having to ask - it is a rewarding experience!

Paladin or Warrior choice
I was asked in the comments of my Pally Tanking for Warriors post the following question:

I have a simple question should I level my priest with a prot warrior or prot pally (i want them to be prot) not just for leveling, but for 80. Which of the two is better with a priest as healer. 

I gave a quick response in the comments, but given the theme of choices I thought it was worth reposting here.

What I did say was this:

It really comes down to personal preference neither will be better or worse. And it would be better to choose the class you think you will enjoy.

TL;DR for working with a priest - there isn't going to be a huge difference - at 80 warriors might be slightly better off when you outgear the content because the shields from priests stop the mana returns from spiritual attunement because you don't need as much healing - but there are ways around this.

Leveling - if you are going to do a lot with just the two of you the Paladin has some advantages because it has some tools to save other people (Hand of Protection, Lay on Hands) which is largely limited to intervene on the warrior side (you can also make use of Challenging Shout too).

But once again it comes back to preference. I would have a look at the posts by Big Bear Butt I referenced above for comparisons between the way that you tank as a paladin, and the way you tank as a warrior - assume that there are a number of similarities between bear tanking and warriors in terms of being highly mobile etc.

A couple of further thoughts...

I should note that I didn't tank on my Paladin until I hit level 80 - and I didn't go Prot on my warrior until level 60 and I also got to almost level 60 in vanilla WoW so my perspective on leveling is a little dated - and this is largely speculation. But in terms of the leveling process there are a couple of factors - one warriors get their signature attack at level 40 in shield slam and the new best friend (as of patch 3.3.3 - I'll be updating the warrior health calculations soon) in revenge you get at level 14. Early levels of paladin tanking there aren't so many tools available. However, as I was finding bear tanking in the 20s recently rage was an issue - and I think at that level having mana to start with would be a benefit.

Now assuming you blast through the levels you have different tools available that eventually even out in the lists I have in the original post. I would say at earlier levels Paladins are already seeing AoE threat advantages through consecrate - and also Seal of Command (which is usually the best option going down Ret to start with) with warriors missing out on shockwave until level 60.

One last point from my perspective, the off spec options for Paladins are greater than a warrior - in terms of healing, but also in terms of DPS. My dps experience is very limited - but I've found that Retribution is a lot more forgiving on positioning than a warrior (I've never been fury so this is solely based on Arms) - and for someone that has trouble with melee DPS (I'm fine if I'm controlling the mobs) I found I go better performance from my paladin. Some of this will be likely due to gear - the theory being Warriors are the most gear dependent, and on the flip side Retribution starts out better but doesn't scale as well. I can't say because neither of my gear sets for DPS have been any good. I laugh whenever I look at my Arms gear!

But I'll reiterate - they are different classes so preferences will vary - but purely min/maxing there isn't a lot of difference in it from what I have seen. Interestingly the warrior tanking our ToC run last night was saying he didn't want to offtank because he started his warrior after always having to offtank with his protection paladin - but a lot of that is a carry over from old (e.g. tBC) expectations. Both can main tank or off tank. The other issue with the question is this though - that it is hard to compare before you get to max level as the tanking experience and tools do change  - perhaps not as much from about level 60 although you are missing some tools on both sides!



So ... two roads diverge in a wood... or is that many roads/choices... damn it - I was never good at decision making!